Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, Roman Catholic cardinal of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said this in a speech at Dallas University in Texas: “The globalization of the exchange of services, capital and patents has led, over the past 10 years, to the establishment of a world dictatorship of finance capital. The transcontinental oligarchies that hold the financial capital dominate the planet. The lords of financial capital wield over billions of human beings the power of life and death. Through their investment strategies, their stock market speculations, their alliances, they decide day to day, who has the right to live on this planet and who is doomed to die. The effects and consequences of the neo-liberal dictatorships that rule democracies are not hard to uncover. They invade us with the industry of entertainment. They make us forget about human rights. They convince us that nothing can be done, that there is no possible alternative. To change the system it would be necessary to destroy the power of the new feudal lords.”

What is doubly significant about Cardinal Maradiaga’s radical analysis of rapacious capitalism is his close relationship with Pope Francis. He is the pope’s right-hand man and one of his closest friends. Does this mean that the Catholic Church is embarking on the long slog out of the Dark Ages?